The Wishing Moon

by Louise Elizabeth Dutton

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It was winter in Green River.

  The town, attracting Colonel Everard to it sixteen years before, newlyprosperous, outgrowing its old lumbering days, with the ship-buildingindustry already a thing of the past, with the power in the little riverawaiting development, money in the small but thriving bank, and a newspirit everywhere, beyond the control of old leaders, too progressivefor a provincial magnate's direction, had been in the interesting anddangerous condition of a woman ready for her next love affair; if theright man comes, she may live happy ever after, but even if the wrongman comes, a flirtation is due. Like a woman again, the town showed thestrength of his hold on her in his absence; in winter, when the big,unfriendly house was shuttered and closed, the ladies of the innercircle wore out their summer evening gowns at mild winter gayeties,church socials, Village Improvement Society bridge parties, and theold-fashioned supper parties which the Nashes and Larribees and Saxonsstill ventured to give.

  Humble festivities which he would not have honoured with his presencelacked allurement because he was not in town and staying away from them.Great matters and small hung fire to await his deciding vote, from thelist of books to be bought for the library to the chairmanship of theschool board. Marking time and waiting for the Colonel to come home;that was what winter meant to most of Green River, but not to JudithRandall. Winter was a charmed time to her; the time when her mother didnot care what she did. Freedom was always sweet, but this winter it wassweeter than ever before to Judith.

  She was never lonely now. Whispering groups in the dingy corridor of theold schoolhouse, or in that sacred spot, the senior's corner, a clusterof seats in the northwest corner of the assembly-room devoted bytradition to secret conclaves, though not distinguishable from the restof the seats in the room to uninitiated eyes, drew her in withoutquestion, slipping intimate arms round her waist.

  Attempts at informal gatherings in the Randall drawing-room werefailures, chilled by brief but devastating invasions of Mrs. Randallwith a too polite manner and disapproving eyes. But wherever the crowddrifted after school hours, Judith drifted, too, or was summoned bytelephone, by imperative messages, vague, and of infinitepossibilities:

  "Judy, this is Ed. There'll be something doing to-night at our house.Bring your new dance records." Or, as the outer fringe of the youngerset, jealously on the watch for snobbishness, but disarmed at last,claimed her diffidently but eagerly, new names at which her motherraised her eyebrows appeared on her dance orders: Joe Garland, whosefather kept the fish market, and Abie Stern, Junior, the tailor's son."Is this Judith Randall? Well, Judith, this is Joe; Joe Garland. I'mgetting up a crowd to go skating to-night, and have a rarebit afterward.Would you care to come?"

  She was one of the crowd. Natalie, little, sparkling-eyed, andblack-haired, with the freshest and readiest of laughs, was morepopular, filling her dance orders first and playing the lead intheatricals, and Rena Drew was more prominent, president of the classand the debating society, and the proud owner of the strongest voice inthe school quartette, a fine big contralto which wrapped itself roundJudith's small, clear soprano at public appearances and nearlyextinguished it. Willard, the most eligible of the boys, was Judith'sunquestioned property, otherwise nothing distinguished her. She was oneof the crowd, and accepted the fact demurely, as if it were a matter ofcourse, not a dream come true. Just as discreetly she conducted heraffair with Neil Donovan, captain-elect of the team, literary editor ofthe school paper, star debater, and in his way a creditable conquest, ifshe had cared to claim him openly.

  "Neil danced three dances with me," confided Natalie, in the hushedwhisper appropriate to the confidences that were part of the ceremony ofspending the night together after a party, though Natalie's room, withthe old-fashioned feather bed, where the two were cuddling together, wason the third story of the rambling white house, and safe out of hearing.

  "Neil?"

  "Judy, it's too bad to call him Murph and make fun of him. The day hecame into the store to solicit ads for the _Record_ father said that boywould go far, if he had half a chance, but no boy had a chance in thistown, the way it is run, and no Irish boy ever did have a chance. Well,an Irish boy is just as good as anybody, if they only thought so."

  "But they don't."

  "Judy, you are horrid about Neil. You always are about any boy I getcrushed on. Neil has perfectly beautiful eyes, and he is so sensitive.He kept looking at you all through that last schottische as if you hadhurt his feelings. He must have gone home soon after that. I didn't seehim again. You didn't dance with him once."

  "No."

  "Poor boy. And he's up there in the schoolhouse with you, hour afterhour, practising quartette stuff, and Willard so crazy about you hecan't see, and Rena crazy about Willard----"

  "Rena can have Willard."

  Miss Ward was not to be diverted. "Neil's father did keep a saloon, buthe died when Neil was a baby. His uncle that he lives with keeps a storeat the Falls, and that's all right. His aunt took in washing, but hismother never did. Charles Brady does get drunk, but Maggie drives him toit. She's getting awfully wild. She's a perfect beauty, though, and Iwish I had her hair. But Charlie's only Neil's second cousin. And Neilis so quiet and pleasant, not like that Brady boy that was in my sisterLutie's crowd; just as fascinating, but Neil doesn't take liberties."

  "I'm getting sleepy, Nat."

  "Judy, the way I feel about Neil, about Irish boys, is this: we can't gowith them afterward, but while they're in school with us, they are justas good as we are, and we ought to give them just as good a time as wecan. If you know what I mean."

  "I don't. I'm sleepy."

  "I'm not. I shan't shut my eyes." But Miss Ward did shut them. "Judy."

  "Well?"

  "Judy, Abraham Lincoln split rails."

  "Cheer up. The Warren Worth Comedy Company is going to play at the Hallnext week, and Warren Worth has perfectly beautiful eyes, too."

  "Not like Neil's."

  "Go to sleep, Nat."

  But Judith did not go to sleep until after an hour of staring wide-eyedinto the dark, and she did not confide to Natalie or any one what hadhappened in the intermission after the schottische.

  "You act restless," Willard complained to her then. "You hardly lookedat me all through the encore."

  "I'll look at you now, but get me some water first," she directed, andhaving disposed of him, slipped out alone into the dim and draughtycorridor. Odd Fellows' Building, the centre of various businessactivities by day, looked deserted and forlorn at night, when the suitesof offices were dark and closed, and the hall where they danced, gaylylighted and tenanted, was a little island of brightness in thesurrounding dark.

  "Neil," Judith called softly, "Neil, where are you? I saw you come outhere. I know you're here." The corridor was empty, but several officedoors opened on it, and on one of them she saw Charlie Brady's name. Sheknocked at it. "You're in there. I know you are. Let me in." She triedthe door, found it unlocked, and opened it. The room was dark, faintlylighted by the street lamps outside the one uncurtained window, where hesat with his head in his hands, huddled in a discouraged heap overCharlie Brady's desk. Judith came and perched on it triumphantly.

  "Running away?" she said.

  "It's all I'm good for."

  "Look at me."

  "I thought you hadn't any dances free."

  "I haven't. This is Willard's."

  "Go back to Willard.... What did you come here for?"

  "I don't know."

  "Don't you?" He looked up now, with magic in his eyes and voice, thestrange magic that came and went, and when it left him Judith couldnever believe it would come again. But it was here. With a little sighshe slipped off the desk and into the arms he held out for her, closingher eyes.

  "I didn't want to dance with you," she whispered; "not with all thoselights, and before those people."

  "No, dear."

  "I can't stay very long. They'd miss me."

  "I'll let you go whe
n you want to."

  "I don't want to. I feel so comfortable--all sleepy, but so wide-awake.I never want to go."

  Judith, remembering this moment until she carried it into her dreamswith her, could not have shared it with Natalie. It was a dream already,to be wondered at and forgotten by daylight, as she stared across theschoolroom at Neil, not a romantic figure at all with his ill-fittingsuit and his tumbled hair; forgotten until the next moment like itcame--next in a lengthening series of dream pictures, of moonlight andcandlelight and faintly heard music, a secret too sweet to share, ahidden treasure of dreams.

  Certain pictures stood out clearest. In one, she was skating with Neil.Willard was giving a chowder party at the Hiawatha Club. This imposingname belonged to a rough one-room camp with a kitchen in a lean-to and arow of bunks in the loft above, and a giant chimney, with a cracklingblaze of fire to combat the bleakness of the view through theuncurtained windows--Mirror Lake. It was a failure as a mirror thatday, veiled with snow, and the white birches fringing it showed bare andcold among the warm green of spruce and pine.

  The camp was built and owned and the canoes and iceboats kept in repairin the boathouse, and the cook maintained and replaced when he left fromloneliness, all by a syndicate with Judge Saxon as president. Forming itwas one of the last independent social activities of the town before theColonel took charge.

  It was bad ice-boating to-day. The wind was fitful, and the boat, agraceful and winged thing in full flight, dragged heavily along, lookingthe clumsy makeshift box of unpainted boards that it was. It was a dayto be towed along on your skates with one hand on the boat. Judith andNeil had tired of this and fallen behind.

  Close together, but not taking hands, they swung slowly through theunpeopled emptiness, leaving a tiny scattering of tracks behind, theblue-white ice firm under their feet through a light film of snow. Theice-boat was out of sight, the sprightly and unexpurgated ballad of"Amos Moss," rendered in the closest of close harmony, could be heard nolonger, and a heavy silence hung over the lake. The camp lay far behindthem, a vanishing speck.

  "Neil, take me back," Judith directed suddenly.

  "Not yet."

  "Please. I want some pop-corn.... Neil, I don't like you. You won'ttalk. You're queer to-day."

  He did not answer. They cut through the ice in silence. It was rougherhere. They were near the north end of the lake. There was open waterthere to-day, black water into which a boat might crash and go down; itmade the water under them seem nearer to Judith, black water with onlythe floor of ice between. She shivered, and Neil broke the silenceabruptly, his eyes still straight ahead.

  "Judith."

  "Oh, you can talk then?"

  "Judith--do you love me?"

  "Don't be silly." Judith spoke sharply. Days at the camp were always atrial to her. The crowd, bunched together in a big hay-rack mounted onrunners, started out noisy and gay, like a party of children, singing,groping for apples in the straw, and playing children's games. But atnight, slipping home under the moon to a tinkle of sleigh-bells, coveredwith rugs two by two, a change would take place: arms would slip aroundwaists that yielded after perfunctory protest; in the dark of the woodsthere would be significant whispering and more significant silences;Willard would be unmanageable. Judith saw this with alien eyes becauseof Neil, and dreaded it. This that was between them was so much morebeautiful, not love-making, not real love, only a strange, white dream.

  "You don't, then? You don't love me?"

  "We're too young."

  He did not argue the point. His silence had made her lonely before, nowit frightened her. She slipped a hand into his, warm through its clumsyglove.

  "Cross hands. Don't you want to?"

  "No."

  "But I want to. I'm tired. How limp your hand feels. Hold my handstighter. Neil----"

  "What?"

  "You don't mind--what I said just now?"

  "What did you say?"

  "That about not loving you."

  "That?" He laughed a bitter, lonely sort of laugh, as if she weretalking about something that happened a long time ago. "You had to sayit. It's true. I knew it well enough. I just thought I'd ask you."

  "Do you want me to very much--want me to love you?"

  "Don't talk any more about it."

  "Neil, suppose I should marry Willard?"

  "I suppose you will."

  "You won't mind too much?"

  "What call would I have to mind? Who am I? What am I?"

  He laughed again, the same hard and bitter laugh, and struck out faster,gripping her hands hard, so that it hurt, but looking away from heracross the dead, even white of the trackless snow. There was a pain notto be comforted or reached in his beautiful eyes. It had nothing to dowith her.

  "Neil, wouldn't you care at all?" she said jealously.

  "Care?"

  "If I married Willard?"

  "Oh, yes."

  "Neil, do you love me?"

  He did not answer or seem to hear, and now Judith gave up askingquestions. Carried along at his side in silence, she listened to themuffled creak of the skates on the snow-covered ice, hushed by thesteady and sleepy sound of it, half closing her eyes. His left arm wasbehind her shoulders now, to support her, and she could feel it there,warm and strong. Breathing when he breathed, her heart beating in timewith his, swinging far to right and left, tense with the stroke oryielding deliciously in the recovery, caught in the rhythm of it as ifsome force outside them both were carrying them on like one, and nottwo, and would never let them go, Judith yet felt far away from him.

  She was alone in the heart of a snow-covered world, but she was growingcontent to be alone. She looked up at his white, set face with wide andfearless eyes, while the lure of unexplored and unseen ice invited themall around, and the gray and brooding sky shut them in closer andcloser.

  "Neil," she said softly, not caring now whether he answered or heard, "Iwish we needn't ever go back. I love to-day."

  Not long after this Judith and Neil went snow-shoeing one Saturdayafternoon by special appointment, an epoch-making event for them. Judithdid not often walk with him or take him driving when the sleigh wasentrusted to her. She was not often seen with him. With quartettepractice and committee work for the dramatic club and other officialpretexts for the time they spent together, Willard was not jealous yet,though the winter was almost over, and the treasury of dreams wasfilling fast.

  But this time she made an engagement with Neil as openly as if he wereWillard, while Natalie listened jealously. She started with him openlyfrom the front door, with her mother's disapproving eyes upon them fromthe library window, and Neil proudly carrying her snowshoes, allunconscious of the critical eyes. The afternoon began well, but noafternoon with Neil could be counted upon to go as it began. Two hourslater, when they emerged from the Everard woods into the Colonel'ssnow-covered rose garden, they had quarrelled about half a dozenunrelated subjects, all equally unimportant in themselves, but suddenlyimportant to Neil, who now found further matter for debate.

  "What did you bring me in here for?"

  "Didn't you know I was?"

  "How should I know? I'm no friend of Everard's. I don't know my waythrough his grounds."

  "What makes you call him Everard, without any Colonel or Mr.? It soundsso--common."

  "It's good enough for me. Here, I don't want to go near his house. Ihate the sight of it."

  "But you can't go back by the path. It's too broken up." Judith plungedinto the dismantled rose arbour. "Come on, if you don't want to see thehouse, take my hand and shut your eyes."

  "That's what Green River does," Neil muttered darkly, "shuts its eyes."But he followed her.

  "The Red Etin's castle," Judith announced; "you know, in the fairy tale:

  "The Red Etin of Ireland, He lived in Ballygan. He stole King Malcolm's daughter, The pride of fair Scotlan'. 'Tis said there's one predestinate To be his mortal foe----

  Well, you talk as if the Colonel were
the Red Etin, poor dear. Oh, Neil,look!"

  Sinister enough, looming turreted and tall against a background ofwinter woods, its windows, unshuttered still, since the last of theColonel's week-end parties, and curtainless, catching the slanting raysof the afternoon sun and glaring malignantly, the house confronted themacross the drifted lawn.

  In the woods that circled the house, denuded of undergrowth, seemingalways to be edging forlornly closer to the upstanding edifice forcomfort because it was barren and unfriendly, too, the new-fallen snowlay shadowy and soft, clothing the barrenness with grace. Giant pine andspruce that had survived his invasion stood up proud and green under thecrown of snow that lay lightly upon them, as it had lain long ago,before the Colonel came. And between woods and house, erasing all traceof tortuous landscape gardening, flower-bed and border and path, as ifit had never been, lay a splendid, softly shining sweep of blue-whitesnow. The Colonel's unbidden guests forgot their quarrel and plungedeagerly across the white expanse.

  "Catch me," Judith called, but it was Neil, snatching off her toboggancap by its impudent tassel, who had to be caught. It was heavy andbreath-taking work on the broad, old-fashioned snowshoes which shemanaged with clumsy grace. Judith, short-skirted and trim in fleecywhite sweater, collar rolled high to the tips of small, pink ears, blondcurls blowing in the wind, pursued ardently. Neil evaded her like a leanand darting shadow, hands deep in the pockets of his old gray sweater,cap low over his brooding eyes.

  Under the unrelenting glare of the Colonel's windows, and across thedeserted grandeur of his lawn, the two small and dishevelled figuresdodged and doubled and retreated, only to grapple and trip each other upat last at the foot of the veranda steps, and collapse there, breathlessand laughing. But their laughter died quickly, and Judith, pulling therecovered cap over her wind-tossed curls, watched the brooding gloomcome back into Neil's eyes as he settled into a sulky heap on the stepbelow her.

  Her quarrels with Neil were as strange as her beautiful hours with him,fed by black undercurrents of feeling that swept and surprised her,flaming up suddenly like banked fires. She was hotly angry with him now.

  "Neil, I heard what you said about Green River shutting its eyes. It wasfoolish."

  "I'd say it to his face." Neil flashed a black look at the bland andelegant drawing-room windows, as if he could talk to the Colonel throughthem. "I've got worse than that to say to Everard."

  "Then say it to me. Don't hint. I'm tired of hearing you. You're as badas Norah."

  "You wouldn't understand."

  That is the irresistible challenge to any woman. Judith's eyes kindled.Neil slouched lower on the steps, dropping his head in his hands."Everard," he threw out presently, "has bought the Hiawatha Club Camp."

  "I don't believe it."

  "The club was in debt. That's a bad thing for a club or a man to be, ifthe Colonel knows it. And it's a worse thing for a woman."

  "What do you mean?"

  He did not explain or raise his head. "I've got a job for the summervacation," he said presently.

  "Already? Fine."

  "Oh, fine. In the fish market--tend store, drive the cart. And I'm firedfrom the _Record_, Judith."

  "Fired?"

  "They're going to take on one more man, and pay him real money."

  "But you've got the Green River Jottings to do for the Wells _Clarion_."

  "And I may get two dollars a month out of it."

  "Did you see Judge Saxon again?"

  "Last week."

  "Why didn't you tell me what he said?"

  "I told you what he would say."

  "Oh, Neil!"

  "The Judge hates to say no, that's why he took time to think it over.He'd be a bigger man if he didn't hate to say no. He was right to say noto me."

  "Then I wouldn't admit it."

  "What's it worth to read law in a country law office? The time forthat's past. He's right. And suppose he took me on, what would it do forme? Look at Charlie. Doing hack work and dirty work to pay the rent of aplace to drink himself to death in. He's got brains enough. He knows lawenough. He's slaved and starved and got ready for his chance, and hischance don't come. Why? Because he's Charlie Brady. Well I'm NeilDonovan. I'm Irish, too, what they called me the first time I saw you--apaddy."

  "That's not the Colonel's fault."

  "Who do you think gets the _Record_ job?"

  Judith shook her blond head, disdaining to answer, a gathering storm inher eyes.

  "Chet Gaynor--Mr. J. Chester Gaynor. Lil Burr's brother. Her prizebrother, the one that's been fired from three prep schools. Everard gothim a scholarship at the last one."

  "Why not? He ought to help his friends. He's a kind man and lots of fun.It's not his fault if you don't get on. It's your own fault. You don'thave to work in a fish market if you don't want to, or sit there andsneer at a man who doesn't care what you think of him. Abraham Lincolnsplit rails----"

  Judith stopped, amazed. Quite abruptly Neil had ceased to sit on thesteps and sneer. He was on his feet, hands clenched, thin body tense anddangerous, face dead white and eyes blazing, as Judith had never seenhim before, or only once before, too angry for words, but not needingthem.

  "Neil, do you really hate him? Hate him like that? I never thought youmeant it. But why--what has he done?"

  "Care what I think? If I was any one else--your fool of a Willard--anyone in this town but me, I'd make him care."

  "He's done nothing wrong. Neil, don't. Your eyes look all queer. You'refrightening me."

  "No, he's done nothing wrong, nothing you could get him for. He's toocareful. He plays favourites. He fools women. He locks the door to everychance to get on in this town and he sells the keys. He's got his handon the neck of the town, and he's shutting it tighter and tighter.That's all he does. That's all Everard does."

  "You can't prove it."

  "He takes good care I can't."

  "You can't prove a word of it."

  "Your father could."

  "He's kind to father. He's kind to me."

  "You talk like a child."

  "Well, you talk like my mother's cook.... Oh, Neil, I didn't mean to saythat. Forgive me. Where are you going? I didn't mean to say it."

  "Let me go."

  "You're hurting me."

  "I hate you! You're one of them--one of the Everard crowd. I hate you,too!"

  "What are you going to do?" Her short, panting struggle with him over,her wrists smarting from the backward twist that had broken her hold onhim, she leaned against the veranda rail breathless and stared withfascinated eyes. When this quarrel had gone the way of their otherquarrels, atoned for by inarticulate words of infinite meaning,justified by the keen delight of reconciling kisses, Judith was to keepone picture from it: Neil as she saw him then, standing over herwhite-faced and angry, ragged and splendid, Neil as she had seen himonce before.

  "May-night!" she cried. "You look the way you did that May-night. I'mafraid of you."

  "Everard!" He turned from her, and looking at the windows again as ifthe Colonel were behind him, swung back his arm, and sent it crashingthrough the glass of the nearest one--once and a second time. "Oh, youdon't want me to call him Everard. Colonel Everard!"

  "Neil, I'm afraid."

  He looked at the fragments of broken glass and at Judith scornfully, butthe angry light was fading out of his eyes already, the magic light;against her will she was sorry to see it go.

  "Are you hurt? Did you hurt your hand?"

  "What do you care if I did? Don't be afraid, Judy. He can pay for a paneof glass or two. He wouldn't care if I burned his house down. Nobodycares what I do. I'm a paddy."

  Awkward, suddenly conscious of his snowshoes, he shuffled across thematched boards of the Colonel's veranda and down the steps, turningthere for a farewell word:

  "I'm going. Don't cry. I'm not worth it. I'm a paddy, from Paddy Lane."

  Dream pictures, pleasant or sad, making her cheeks burn in the dark, orlittle secret smiles come when Judith recalled the
m. Some lived in herheart and some faded. Judith did not choose or reject them deliberately.They chose or rejected themselves, arranging themselves into anintricate pattern of growing clearness. She did not watch it grow. Itwas only when it was quite complete that she would see it, but it wasgrowing fast.